


Traitor Toddler Soldier Spy

by RedTeamShark



Series: Small Soldier [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Tower, Brock Rumlow Is A Dad, But He Sure Does Dad It Up, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Not Sure If He's A Good One Or A Bad One, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Toddler Bucky, baby bucky, small town life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29306157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: Once upon a time, Brock Rumlow had thought he'd had a decent sense of when he was going to have a bad day.Now? He wasn't so sure.--To say things had gone sideways was the understatement of the year. And to say that Brock Rumlow had much choice besides running was laughable.Still, he didn't expect the Winter Soldier to show up at his hideout three days after Insight failed to launch.And he definitely didn't expect the Soldier to be carrying the hell-cube that turned him into a baby.So... His life had certainly taken a strange turn.(Updates Thursdays.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Brock Rumlow, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Series: Small Soldier [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149053
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Self control? Don't know her.
> 
> This is entirely Mika's fault and I thank her for it. We spent a Saturday shrieking about this goofy li'l world and I decided to turn our rambling into a full on fic. Thank Mika in the comments. <3

Once upon a time, Brock Rumlow had thought he'd had a decent sense of when he was going to have a bad day.

Now? He wasn't so sure.

There had been no internal alarm before this moment, only the alert on his phone as his doorbell cam triggered. And before he'd even gotten near enough to check the camera, his door had blown inwards and Iron Man had been holding a repulsor glove towards him.

"Put the baby down and keep your hands where I can see them, Rumlow."

In his arms, the Soldier started crying again.

"You _fucking_ asshole," Brock whispered, slowly putting the crying infant on the floor and raising his hands up. "I _just_ got him to sleep."

* * *

* * *

It wasn’t that Brock expected things to go perfectly smoothly, but he certainly hadn’t expected the way they had so _spectacularly_ gone to shit.

Maybe he should have. There had been enough near heart attacks in the last two years to teach him a valuable lesson: _Steve Rogers_ and _according to plan_ mixed like oil and water.

It wasn’t even Rogers’ fault (maybe, kind of, not entirely), though Brock was happy to let good old Captain America take the lion’s share of the blame. Seeing his old buddy had triggered something in the Soldier, and instead of being an obedient thing and following his marching orders, he’d gone shockingly rogue.

Brock had had his own pile of shit to deal with following the insurmountable failure of Insight. Pierce was dead, most of his team was dead, a group of superpowered assholes wanted _him_ dead, and his options had been to eat a bullet or go to ground.

He’d gone to ground.

It wasn’t nearly as far away as he’d have liked to be, but upstate New York wasn’t D.C. and without his regular contacts, a fake ID to get on a plane to Kathmandu was out of the question. He’d set up as off the grid as he could get, hunkered down, and waited for the inevitable judgement day.

Three days after he barely escaped the flaming wreck that used to be his workplace, the Soldier had showed up at his door. Damn thing was filthy and brooding and Brock was too surprised to be afraid. “Uh,” he’d started, before the Soldier shoved himself into the cabin. Okay, then.

“Commander,” the Soldier said, standing up straight and opening the bag at his side. “I remembered--” he grabbed something out and in the blinding flash of white light, Brock just had time for half of a thought.

_That’s the fucking hell-cube that--_

When the spots had cleared from his vision, there’d been a naked infant crying in a pile of filthy clothes in front of him.

“Son of a bitch,” Brock whispered, somewhere between angry and awed.

* * *

What the fuck else was he supposed to do? He’d picked the crying baby up, rocked him gently and made stupid nonsense sounds at him. The science nerds had tweaked the cube around since that hellscape of a retrieval mission and the Soldier rarely was below the age of four anymore. Brock himself had led the thing on enough weird childhood missions to know the gist of the changes.

The cube could be calibrated for a specific age and the Soldier would stay that age until his mission was complete and he was put in contact with the cube again. Once that happened he’d revert to however old he actually was, growing in seconds rather than the hours it had taken the first time. If it was painful like he’d claimed that first time, he didn’t express it. Didn’t express much of anything around the scientists, even when he was meant to be a child.

So, obviously, someone had recalibrated the cube. Which was just a fucking trip, because he sure as shit didn’t know how it worked. In fact, _none_ of this bullshit made sense. If the Soldier was here to kill him, why become an infant? And what had he said? _“I remembered”_ just before he’d gone all diapers and drooling.

Oh, god, was he going to have to buy diapers?

Suppose the Soldier remembered his old life, _The Adventures of Bucky Barnes_ , and was going to bring the Avengers down on him? Most of them could kill him before he even knew they were there (Romanoff and Barton came to mind for that) but if the Soldier remembered being Barnes, he’d probably have spilled all of Brock’s dirty secrets to Rogers.

And Rogers might have been an upstanding guy in all the propaganda, but Brock was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be kind to a traitor. Especially not one that had been complicit in mentally and physically torturing his childhood best friend.

So why the goddamn _baby_? 

At least the Soldier had stopped crying. Brock kept pacing, rubbing his back, feeling the puddle of drool on his shoulder grow. He looked around the cabin, shaking his head in dismay. There was no way he could stay here long term anyways, and now that he had a baby to deal with, well…

He held the sleeping Soldier in one arm, grabbed his go bag, and headed for where he’d stashed the car. Step one, get all the shit a baby would need.

Step two was less concrete.

* * *

Once he’d gotten the Soldier settled into a clean diaper and a onesie, Brock had really considered his options.

Obviously, the best choice was just to dump the kid somewhere and come back in a few hours when he was grown enough to explain what the fuck he was doing. Except he’d left the Soldier in the car while he ran into the store for supplies (fuck, babies were expensive) and when he’d come back, there had been no aging. Brock had bought identical onesies in every size the store had, as well as a pack of each size of diapers, passing over a good chunk of his cash with a mournful glance. That was supposed to buy ammo. Back at the car, he’d slipped the sleeping Soldier into the smallest clothes and diaper, then remembered that babies needed to eat and gone back for formula.

At that point, he’d figured that the store was going to think he’d kidnapped a kid (which he kind of maybe had? Hard to say for sure) so he’d taken off. The highway was risky, toll booths with traffic cameras, but he didn’t want to get out into the middle of nowhere and be stuck, either. After some deliberation, Brock had stopped at a gas station and bought a dusty map of the area from the bored looking cashier, hoping that a guy buying a map in the era of cell phones didn’t raise too many eyebrows.

He’d spread it out over the trunk of his car while he gassed up, found where he was and followed roads north and south and east and west. Ideally, running off into the mountains and being lost forever would be his plan. But with a fucking baby to deal with…

The city was way too risky. Way too close to Stark and his fucking tower, way too many cameras. His best option was a small town, somewhere out of the way from everything, where he could set up and mind his own business.

It wasn’t quite a blind point, but it may as well have been. Brock settled on Hyde’s Corner, New York, for no reason other than his eyes falling on it.

When he got back in the car the Soldier was fussing, and Brock sighed. He pulled to the far end of the gas station’s parking lot, slipping into the back seat with the kid--fuck, he needed a car seat, didn’t he?--and picking him up. “Shh, now, no crying…” A quick pat showed his diaper to be dry, so maybe he was hungry. Or just bitching for the sake of it, babies did that. Brock rocked him gently, slipping the tip of one finger into the kid’s mouth for him to suck at. It’d be better to drive straight through the night, but he wasn’t going to be able to with a crying baby in the back seat. He’d find a motel, take care of the Soldier’s needs, buy a goddamn car seat, and get to Hyde’s Corner in the morning.

“Looks like we’ve got a mission again, Soldier,” he whispered, looking down at those staring blue eyes. The Soldier blinked up at him, before smiling and letting out a spectacularly loud and smelly fart.

Oh, god, that wasn’t a fart.


	2. Chapter 2

_“You ready for final mission brief?” Brock asked, glancing to the back seat of the car._

_The Soldier, current age four years and five months, looked up from his booster seat. His face was deadly serious, his eyes locking on Brock’s for a moment in the mirror before he nodded. “Yes, sir.”_

_“Your target is Judge Randall Lake. White male, age 32, brown hair and brown eyes. He has a daughter, Cynthia Lake, who attends Care and Share Nursery School in Freely, Alabama. Age four years, brown hair and hazel eyes. Your mission is to befriend Cynthia Lake and use her to gain access to Judge Lake’s house. Once inside, your primary objective is to kill Randall Lake. Other casualties are allowed but not encouraged. I will be your sole handler and point of contact on this mission.”_

_The Soldier nodded again. “Yes, sir.”_

_Brock signalled left and pulled into the parking lot of Care and Share Nursery School, finding a parking spot between two minivans. This was like a nightmare designed just for him, but fuck it. Lake would be dead before he could run his mouth and no one would suspect a four-year-old had anything to do with it. He walked around to the back seat to help the Soldier out of the car, allowing the kid to hold his hand as they crossed the parking lot. They’d trained for this exact mission, the Soldier knew how to be four._

_He’d even been given special equipment. No knives or guns this time, but there was a bear tucked securely into his metal arm (covered in a flesh-like sleeve for this covert operation) that hid the syringe of poison the judge would have to be dosed with. Brock stopped outside the school’s main doors, glancing at the teacher as she stood in the doorway, and crouched down. Time to play his role, too._

_“Now you’re going to be nice to the other kids, right?”_

_The Soldier nodded, his face serious. “Yes, sir.”_

_“Good. This is an important job, you know. We don’t wanna mess this up.”_

_They both looked up as footsteps approached, the teacher venturing out of the doorway to join them. Brock stood as she approached, putting on his most casual smile. “Hey there.”_

_“Good morning.” She smiled back, leaning down and holding her hand out to the Soldier. “I’m Miss Patel, what’s your name?”_

_There was a heavy pause of awkward silence, before Brock and the Soldier spoke at the same time._

_“Uh,” Brock said._

_“James?” the Soldier guessed._

_Fuck, no one had ever told them the assigned cover name._

_“Jayme,” Brock cut in, laughing a little awkwardly. Where had ‘James’ come from? Unimportant, he had to focus on this charade. “It’s… a family name, you know? But his name’s Jayme, J-A-Y-M-E. He’s newly enrolled, I’m not sure if all the paperwork went through.” Not that there was any legitimacy to the enrollment paperwork. And now he’d have to spend the morning on the phone with the nerd team, hacking their system to change that illegitimate paperwork. Fucking_ Jayme _._

_“Well, Jayme, it’s very nice to meet you. Why don’t you head inside while your... dad and I talk?” Miss Patel nodded to the door, her smile still firmly in place._

_The Soldier glanced up at Brock. “Commander?”_

_“Do what she says, kiddo.”_

_After another pause, he nodded and headed inside. Brock was sweating bullets, but hopefully he could blame the Alabama weather for that. He glanced at Miss Patel, wondering if he’d have to kill her. She was young and pretty, long dark hair pulled back into a practical braid. It wouldn’t get in the way of a garrote wire._

_“I’ve learned not to blink at how people spell their kids’ names,” she said after a moment of quiet, giving him another kind smile. “How can I, when I’ve had students named Eimii--spelled E-I-M-I-I, pronounced ‘Amy’--and an honest to goodness Renesme.”_

_“Re--what now?”_

_“It’s from--nevermind. I’m sure Jayme will get along just fine here at Care and Share. Just to clarify, you_ are _his dad?”_

_“No,” Brock shook his head quickly. That was one thing he couldn’t get away with faking, and he knew it. “Godfather. His dad died in the war and his mom… didn’t take it well. CPS took him out of her care about six months ago and he’s been with me for the last four. Spent some time in foster in between.” Which would hopefully pass off the Soldier’s unsettlingly unchildlike behavior at times. “I guess I should warn you now, he’s got some… quirks. Doesn’t do well with being yelled at. He isolates a lot, so I’m hoping that preschool will do him a few favors, socially, before I have to put him in public education.”_

_Miss Patel nodded. “We have a child psychologist on staff, though she travels between different buildings. I can set up an appointment for him to talk to her, if that’s necessary.”_

_“Let’s try out letting him be a normal kid, first. Maybe some friends his own age is all he needs to bounce back. Anyways, I’ll let you get inside. I’ve got work to do. Pick-up is at noon?”_

_“Between twelve and twelve-thirty. You’ll be picking him up?”_

_“For the foreseeable future,” Brock agreed, spinning his keys and heading back to his car. The minivans had both vacated the parking lot. He gave the sedan a routine once-over for anything that had been planted on it, then got in and left._

* * *

Hyde’s Corner was exactly what he hoped it would be: small, quiet, out of the way. There were the essentials: gas station and grocery store, a couple of restaurants, a laundromat, and a few other assorted small businesses. Driving into town he could hear church bells, a cacophony of three different churches all within four blocks of each other. He passed a public library, two parks, and an elementary school.

It was the perfect kind of small town to lay low in.

Now he just had to _find_ somewhere to lay low.

Hydra had plenty of safe houses around the world, but as far as he knew they’d never touched this place. And for the better, because with the information dump he’d seen online when he’d briefly connected his laptop to the motel’s wifi (bypassing the paywall with ease; he’d learned a few things from the nerds over the years), the Avengers would be after every Hydra hide out in existence before long. And, looking at the sleeping baby in the back seat of the car, he couldn’t exactly bring himself to be eager to surface and rejoin whatever cells were trying to continue the mission. It was over. Too much hard work had been destroyed for it to be rebuilt in his lifetime. Now he had the Soldier to deal with, and whatever half-cocked plan had brought the Soldier and the hell-cube to him.

Ah, fuck, he’d left the hell-cube back at his last hideout. Well, maybe he’d get lucky and the Avengers would accidentally touch it and get stuck as infants long enough for him to die of old age. He could hope.

If he didn’t want to look like he’d kidnapped a kid (and he didn’t), then explaining why he had almost nothing while moving to a new town was going to be difficult. Brock pulled up to the gas station as the Soldier started fussing in his carseat, getting out and going around to get him.

“Shh, shh…” He patted the baby’s back, checking his diaper quickly. Dry still, thank god. The onesie he was in was a bit too big, but the kid had soaked through his diaper and ruined the other one overnight. 

He carried the Soldier inside, moving to the coffee pot and working as well as he could one-armed to get himself a cup of coffee. And actually… Brock filled a cup with hot water as well, carrying both up to the counter and digging around for his wallet.

“Long night?” The clerk asked, ringing up his coffee and making change.

“Could say that. We’ve been on the road for a bit.”

“Mmm… yeah, mine always got extra pukey when they were in the car. How old?”

Brock’s mind shut off for a moment, before he forced himself to keep being _normal_. Normal enough. “Three months. We, uh--we just kinda…” God, he looked like a kidnapper. The woman behind the counter had a kind smile and shrewd eyes, she was going to call the cops and that would be it for him.

“No mom in the picture?”

“No, she…” The cover story from that job in some godawfully humid place down south popped into his head and Brock ran with it, tweaking it just slightly. “She’s a little… y’know, in the head. Had to get a restraining order and sole custody and I thought it’d be better to just--get away for awhile. Make ourselves harder to track down.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, darting to the Soldier’s exposed metal arm, before her gaze softened. “I see… Well… Have you got somewhere to stay?”

Holy shit it had actually worked. “No… well, not yet. I guess I should start looking.”

“Here.” She nodded decisively, grabbing a scrap of paper and writing down an address and a name. “Mrs. Cook has a guest house that she rents out. It’s only one bedroom, but it’s enough until you get back on your feet. She and I are in the VFW auxiliary together, we’ll talk to the other ladies there and see about getting you some things for the baby, too.”

“I don’t--”

“Son you’ve got a single car in that parking lot with hardly any trunk space, there’s no way you have a proper crib in there. We’re a small town here, we look out for each other.” She pushed the paper at him, almost forceful. “Go visit Mrs. Cook, tell her Mrs. Marshall sent you, and make a good impression.”

Brock stood up a little straighter. “Yes, ma’am.” He took the paper and his coffee, headed back out to the car to warm up a bottle for the Soldier.

Okay, so he had a place to stay now. That was good.

* * *

The house was indeed small, but it had everything Brock figured he’d need. There was a kitchen and living room area, a bathroom, a bedroom, and even a little nook for laundry. Before he’d even gotten to her property, Mrs. Cook had known he was coming, met him outside with a smile. She took the Soldier immediately, held him over her shoulder and patted his back until he burped.

“The phone tree is fully active, we should have some things for you two by the end of the week. Margie’s niece just turned one, so if you don’t mind a lot of purple, she’ll have plenty of baby clothes for you. And Laura’s got plenty of hand-me-downs from Nathaniel that she might part with.” She’d kept up a mile a minute, burping the Soldier the entire time she showed Brock the guest house.

“Have you got a job lined up?”

“I, uh--I’ll start looking right away--” Brock stuttered out, not quite able to meet her eyes.

“Well, Mr. Parsons down at the garage always has a help wanted sign out, if you don’t mind working for a miserable old cuss. If you don’t know anything about cars he can put you to work cleaning up. And if you can’t stand him, there are always odd jobs around town. Lord knows I could use someone to mow the lawn for me since my son went off to the city.”

Everything about this place was almost-- _too_ good. A place to stay, a job, so few questions that he was wondering if they were all secretly Hydra plants. Or worse, S.H.I.E.L.D. plants. Was the ghost of Phil Coulson about to pop up and arrest him, then make him fill out his own paperwork?

“This is--I mean you’re so generous, I really…” Brock looked down at the scuffed linoleum of the kitchen, feeling suddenly young and dumb and vulnerable. Just how he’d felt when Hydra had sunk its claws into him. “I’m not sure I deserve all this kindness, ma’am.”

“Everyone deserves a fresh start at least once in their lives. Now.” She put the Soldier back into his arms, smiling. “I’ll leave you two to get settled in. We’re a tight-knit group here, which mostly means we’re nosey, but I’ll try to keep the curious masses from bothering you too much. I’m looking forward to having you around…” The pause held and he realized that he hadn’t even given her his name.

It was too late to think of a cover. Either she would know who he really was or she would find out. Brock forced himself to smile and held out his hand. “Brock. Brock Rumlow. And this is--” the name popped into his head, more memories of times gone by, but what the fuck. Things couldn’t get much worse. “This is Jayme.”

“Brock and Jayme. I hope you’ll stay here a while.”

He watched her cross the yard back to her house, saw the way she eyed his car. Brock settled onto the couch, laying the sleeping Soldier down on his legs and stroking his shock of dark hair gently.

Maybe this place wasn’t forever, but it was a start. The fresh start that he certainly didn't deserve.

“You and me against the world, and all you do is poop and cry. Who saw that comin’?” Brock whispered, shaking his head in awe.

* * *

_The upside of these child-sized missions was that the safehouses didn’t smell like piss._

_The downside was pretty much everything else._

_After a week of nursery school, the Soldier had reported that phase one was successful. Brock was to call Cynthia Lake’s nanny (because of_ course _this fucking kid had a nanny) and arrange a playdate. He’d done his part, agreed to have Cynthia and Julie, the nanny, over on Sunday afternoon._

_Now he was regretting that, making coffee in the safehouse’s tiny kitchen while Julie sat at the counter and watched the ‘kids’ color on the coffee table._

_“They’re such a cute little couple,” she remarked and Brock fought in the urge to add rat poison to her coffee. He didn’t hide his eye roll, she wasn’t looking._

_“Jayme is a charmer,” he said after a moment, putting a mug down for her and taking a seat on the other stool._

_“Must be the eyes. They’re so blue…” Julie glanced at him, giggling and blushing. “Not that_ I’m _falling for his charms or anything!”_

_With an effort, Brock didn’t get up and snap her neck. He looked over at the kids instead, reciting his practiced speech. “I was worried about how moving would affect him. Everything’s been pretty shaken up this last year or so… but I wanted us to have a fresh start. Give him a chance to be a kid, make some friends, all that normal shit.”_

_Julie let out a startled gasp, lowering her voice. “Shh, language. Can’t talk like that in front of the kids!”_

_The vein in the side of his neck throbbed to signal an impending migraine. “Anyways.” Brock took an audible sip of his coffee, nodding to the living room. “Jayme and Cynthia seem to get along well. We should have another playdate sometime. Maybe a little sleepover.”_

_“I’d have to check with her parents, I know they’re not too fond of her being alone with strangers… The vetting process_ I _had to go through to get this job…” She shook her head, glancing at the kids before dropping her voice. “There’s been some… worrying news surrounding her father, Judge Lake? I guess they think something might happen to Cyn because of some recent case filings he’s looked into. I don’t know for sure, but I do know that they pay me to sit around outside of the nursery school now, instead of going back home and cleaning up like I used to.”_

_Brock pretended to consider all of that, before shrugging. “Could always have Jayme sleep over at her place. I worry that he’s going to get clingy, even though he’s done well with nursery school so far. Give him a chance to extend his independence.”_

_They went back to watching the kids, but by the time Julie and Cynthia left for dinner, they were on to phase three of the mission._


	3. Chapter 3

_There was a sound, stealthy but not stealthy enough. He put a hand on the gun under his pillow on reflex._

_Another sound. Brock relaxed slightly. That was the squeaky floor board outside of the kid’s room._

_A moment later, the hinge on his own bedroom door creaked softly. “Go back to bed,” Brock ordered, not turning his face away from his pillow. Not even opening his eyes._

_“C-Commander…?” Soft and hesitant, from the doorway._

_He turned his head slightly, cracked one eye open. “What.”_

_In the glow of the streetlight, he could see the Soldier fairly well. Bundled up in a pair of footie pajamas, holding his stuffed bear close. His lower lip was trembling. “I had a bad dream…”_

_“And? You know the difference between dreams and reality.” He shifted on the bed, lifted his arm so the blanket rose. A moment later the warm mass of seven-year-old Winter Soldier was snuggled up to his chest. Brock dropped his arm again, wrapping it around the kid. “Fine. Tell me.”_

_The Soldier hiccuped, hiding his face into Brock’s chest, muffling his words as he spoke. “I had a dr-dream that you didn’t like me any--” he gasped in a quick breath “--anymore and you left me a-an’ no one came to get me…”_

_“Well that’s dumb,” Brock said after a moment of quiet, digging his chin into the top of the kid’s head gently. The lingering scent of strawberry bubble bath was still clinging to him from after dinner. “I’d never leave you.”_

_Small arms held onto him tighter for a moment, and he allowed himself to pat the Soldier on the back. “Do I gotta go back t’my bed?”_

_He already sounded half asleep. Brock cracked one eye open, looking at his clock. 0345. Just over an hour until his alarm went off. “Not if you fall asleep in the next five minutes.”_

* * *

The people of Hyde's Corner were either naive to the point of farce or all secretly agents from _somewhere_. Hydra if he was unlucky, S.H.I.E.L.D. if he was really fucked, and Stark if god did in fact hate him. Considering his run of luck so far, he was willing to bet it was the last option.

There was Mrs. Cook, who had his full name but apparently didn’t know how google worked. Or a newspaper. Or the goddamn TV. He knew his face was plastered on wanted posters all over. 

There was Mr. Parsons, who happily agreed to let him start working at the garage on nothing more than Mrs. Cook’s word. Brock spent about six hours a day down there, mostly cleaning up the godawful mess the old man kept the place in. Mr. Parsons paid him under the table, muttering something about the government as he handed over sixty dollars a day. It wasn’t enough to live on, but it was at least a start.

It seemed like everyone else he’d met in town--mostly through his landlady and her various social clubs--was just as happy to be accommodating. Hell, he even had a regular babysitter for the Soldier--Jayme, these days. Laura Cortland was her name and she had three kids of her own: Lila, who was eight and rambunctious; Cooper, who was six and reserved; and Nathaniel, who was two and endlessly curious. She’d been more than happy to take the baby from him while he went to work, didn’t even ask for money. In fact when he tried to pay her she’d politely but sternly refused.

It was goddamn _unsettling_.

Brock took the kid with him on Saturday, down to the grocery store to spend his pay from the week. Three hundred dollars a week was pennies compared to what he’d made at S.H.I.E.L.D. and even less than his Hydra bonuses (money that he couldn’t touch anymore, if his bank account even still existed) but in Hyde’s Corner it seemed like enough to get by. He bought more diapers and formula, some mushy baby food at the advice of the clerk, and enough real food to make himself a few meals. Not that he needed to, it seemed like every night when he got back from work, Mrs. Cook had ‘just too much’ of some delicious, scratch-made meal.

He was going to get fat if he wasn’t careful.

The time passed pleasantly enough, and Jayme did seem to be growing. Slowly, but growing nonetheless. Brock found himself often talking to the kid as he sat in his hand-me-down swing or laid in his pastel purple crib next to the bed. There was no judgement from a baby, after all.

“I don’t know if you remember this,” he started one rainy night, lifting the fussing baby from his crib and walking him around the room, “but you used to insist on getting in bed with me when it was storming out. Couldn’t make you sleep in your own bed for even a damn minute.” He rubbed the baby’s back, soothing him gently as lightning flashed. Small hands gripped the collar of his t-shirt tightly. “I’d try to make you sleep in your own room and you’d cry your fucking head off. Definitely wasn’t supposed to give in, but _one_ of us had to sleep.” He laughed a little, moving to the kitchen and making up a bottle of tepid water. He carefully settled on the couch, shifting Jayme in his arms and offering him the bottle. “Never forget the time we were on a mission when you were big, and a bigass storm rolled up on the way to the safe house. You came right up on me and held my hand the whole walk back, then sure enough, fuckin’ crawled right into bed with me once we got there.” He frowned a little, looking away. “That… I had to punish you for it. Make sure you understood that was only okay when you were young, and we were alone.” Brock looked back at the baby, his closed eyes and relaxed face. He pulled the bottle away gently, setting it on the little coffee table. Kid had barely taken three sips. “Hey… if you get big again and you’re still scared of storms, you won’t get in trouble for crawling into bed with me. Promise.”

He should get up and put the kid in his crib for the night, but Jayme (the name really had a way of growing on him, dumb spelling and all) wasn’t as deeply asleep as he seemed. Every time lightning flashed or thunder rumbled, his brow would twitch and his little hands would reach out for Brock before settling again.

He laid down on the couch and settled the baby on his chest, flipping the TV on. One night during a storm wouldn’t hurt anything.

* * *

Time in Hyde’s Corner was strange. Every day seemed to pass at the same casual pace. Wake up and feed Jayme, then take him over to Laura’s place and have coffee with her while the kids ran around. Go to work for Mr. Parsons, eat lunch at the little diner next to the garage. On his way back to Laura’s to pick up the kid he’d wave to people on the sidewalks or their front porches, like he was a fixture there. Just another person who had spent his whole life in the town and would probably be buried at a family plot in the cemetery on the outskirts.

Which wasn’t true in the least and Brock spent just as much time looking over his shoulder as he did on smiling chit-chat with his new neighbors. He’d spent his life lying to people and getting away with it, so coming up with more bullshit wasn’t that hard. And everyone here just seemed willing to accept his stories, no matter how many holes they had in them. He didn’t dare get lost in the fantasy of belonging, but he did let himself slip into the comfort of a routine. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew the idyllic life wouldn’t last, but even he felt some tension easing as the first month passed uneventfully.

The rent Mrs. Cook charged was far less than it should have been, but when he tried to give her more she chastised him in a way he hadn’t heard since the days of his youth, getting yelled at by his nona. He’d never been a genius with numbers and the smart thing to do would have been to get a savings account. Instead he spent an evening at the little kitchen table with paper and a calculator, and he seemed to have counted up right.

On a sunny Saturday he dropped Jayme off at Laura’s and headed out of town, feeling dangerously complacent with his plans. For once, he wasn’t looking over his shoulder when he got on the highway.

Maybe that was where he messed up. Or maybe he’d never really escaped, just been allowed the respite while whoever was most keen on hunting him down tried to figure out where the fuck he got a kid from.

Brock eyed the various options critically, before making his selection and heading to the front counter. It’d be a couple day’s wait, but that was fine. That gave him time to set up back at the house. He’d talked to Mrs. Cook about it and it had taken surprisingly little for her to agree. Just like the updated security system he’d suggested she get. Another red flag that he was deliberately ignoring for the time being.

Laura was on the phone when he went to pick up Jayme that afternoon, talking low with her back to him. Alarm bells went off inside his head immediately, warnings that shit was about to go down. Brock reached for his gun, remembering too late that he’d left it at the house.

“Okay. ‘Bye, Clint, love you.” She hung up and turned around, startled a moment to see him there before the perfectly neutral smile returned. “Hey, didn’t hear you come in. Jayme’s down for a nap in Nate’s room, you want some coffee?”

He felt the mask slip into place, the calm facade he’d worn in the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. for years. The act that had fooled Captain America. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Coffee would be great.” Brock followed her to the kitchen, eyes flashing to the knife block on the counter.

Killing this woman and her kids would be messy, but he had a go bag in the car. Too bad he’d just dropped a lot of his run money. Should have stashed it.

Over a month. He’d gotten almost six weeks of relative peace after Insight. That was way more borrowed time than he deserved. It shouldn’t have been enough for him to get complacent, yet somehow he had. “So who were you on the phone with? Boyfriend?”

Laura laughed, breezy and casual. “No, no. Brother. Well, brother-in-law. He lives down in the city, calls every few days to ask after me and the kids. I think he feels guilty, leaving us all alone up here.”

He took the cup she held out to him, eyes on her left hand. No ring. “Married to one of your siblings?”

“No, brother of my late husband. He went overseas with the marines and, well,” she shrugged, looking out the window. “I dunno, sometimes I still expect him to come home.”

It still didn’t sit right with him, but… There was something too sincere in her gaze. And she _did_ wear a chain he recognized around her neck, the simple silver beads of dog tags. “Sorry. I’m being as nosey as Mrs. Cook’s book club.”

Laura gave him a wan smile. “Nonsense, none of them would be so direct as to ask. They’d just hint and pry. Anyways, successful trip?”

Brock let it go, let himself fall back into the casual, easy life of Hyde’s Corner. When Jayme woke up, he took him home, accepted the ‘extra’ dinner Mrs. Cook had made him, and settled in for another routine evening.

He didn’t deserve this second chance, but he wasn’t going to give it up until he had to.

* * *

Teething was going to be the death of him.

He’d gotten maybe ten hours of sleep in the last three days, and the Orajel Laura had given him was all but gone--not that it seemed to have done much. Brock had resorted to dipping his finger in his bottle of whiskey, letting the kid alternatingly suck and gnaw on that. Good parenting, probably not, but the alcohol seemed to numb Jayme’s gums better than the medication.

He _should_ have gone to the store and gotten his own tube of Orajel, of course, but the idea of carrying a shrieking child into the big chain store in the next town raised too many internal alarms. It’d draw attention. Of course Hyde’s Corner didn’t have Orajel at their grocery store. He’d even called the gas station on the off chance, but Mrs. Marshall had given him a sympathetic no and suggested the whiskey.

Brock was halfway contemplating matching shots with the baby to see which one of them passed out first when it happened.

Finally, after a solid hour of walking around with him, preceded by two hours of rocking him, preceded by an agonizing ten minutes of letting him cry it out… _Finally_ , Jayme was asleep.

Brock hadn’t gotten more than thirty minutes of sleep the night before and he didn’t know how long this would last. 

He was ready to nap on the couch, not daring to put Jayme down, when his phone bleeped an alert for his front door camera. Brock groaned softly, took one step towards the door, and it blew in off its hinges. Iron Man stood in the doorway, one glowing glove raised threateningly. “Put the baby down and keep your hands where I can see them, Rumlow.”

Jayme woke up with a renewed scream.

"You _fucking_ asshole," Brock whispered, slowly putting the crying infant on the floor and raising his hands up. "I _just_ got him to sleep."

Whatever quippy one-liner or threat Stark had didn’t get a chance to be voiced. In one moment there was a crying infant on the floor between them, in the next there was a ripping sound, and then a naked two-year-old was standing in front of Brock, arms thrown wide and glare fixed on his face.

“Leave Commander Dad alone!”

* * *

_Most jobs ended with the Soldier grown, but sometimes that wasn’t feasible. Usually those nights were a pain in the ass._

_Not this time._

_The mission had been successful, but it hadn’t been smooth. Shit had gone sideways in ways that could only happen when one of the operatives was effectively a second grader._

_Through a convoluted bullshit plot that he’d been briefed on and immediately pushed out of his mind, there was apparently a fucking monkey with Hydra secrets at the zoo. One of the special monkeys, the kind that did sign language shows with a handler._

_Because of-fucking-course._

_Their job was to kill the handler and steal back the monkey, or kill them both if that wasn’t possible. Brock had immediately decided that ‘smuggling a monkey out of a zoo with a seven-year-old’ wasn’t possible. Killing it was a lot easier._

_No one on the tour had noticed them hanging back at the monkey meet and greet (seriously, what the_ fuck _was his job these days). Hell, the handler hadn’t even realized they were sneaking up on him until Brock’s knife was to his throat._

_The fucking monkey had been smart enough to scream, though._

_He’d find it funny if it didn’t draw so much attention to them._

_The Soldier had taken out the monkey and they’d split up to run, lost each other in the confusion. Rendezvous was supposed to be the big animal clock in the middle of the zoo, where they had the most options for exits._

_Unfortunately, a seven-year-old wandering around alone drew the wrong kind of attention._

_Hearing a page for “Commander Rumlow” over the loudspeaker was enough of a heart attack. Seeing the Soldier sat next to a security guard, Brock was wondering how they were going to shoot their way out of a fucking zoo._

_Worse still, the Soldier looked like he’d been crying. His face was red and puffy, and though he was holding what looked like a brand new stuffed bear, most of its fur had been rubbed away. Probably from being squeezed by that metal hand. The synth-skin they put over it was abrasive as hell._

_“Hey, what’s all this fuss?” Brock asked, trying to keep casual. The Soldier looked up immediately, dropped the bear and ran to him. Scrawny but strong arms wrapped around his legs as the kid pressed against him. “Easy, kiddo, easy… I’m here…”_

_“I--I thought…” The tears were back, the security guard giving him a sympathetic look. Brock knelt down, held the Soldier’s face in his hands and wiped his tears away gently. “I thought it was like my dream…”_

_“No, no way. Never. I’ll_ never _abandon you, kiddo. I promise, I will_ always _come back for you.” Brock kissed his forehead, taking his hand and leading him away. Out of the zoo, back to the car._

_At the safehouse that evening, after he’d reported in and scheduled pick-up for the morning, Brock found the Soldier in his room. He was sat in bed, already dressed in his pajamas and holding onto a book, almost hiding behind it._

_“Will you read to me tonight, Commander?”_

_He smiled, sat down on the edge of the bed and made the kid scoot over. “I thought you wanted to read to me from now on? That’s what you said last time.”_

_The Soldier looked down, hands twisting in the blanket. “I just… I wanna fall asleep hearing your voice. Knowing you’re here.”_

_“Well…” He picked up the book, opened it and let the kid cuddle in against him. “That’s fair. So… Chapter one…”_


	4. Chapter 4

_Getting a phone call at three in the morning wasn't out of the ordinary, but that didn't make it welcome. Brock stared at his buzzing phone, feeling the dull thud of anger in the back of his head. Or maybe that was the hangover. He'd gone to the bar to watch the game and had more to drink that he should have._

_With a grunt of irritation, he picked up the phone. "Rumlow."_

_The other end was static, but he still picked out the words well enough. Code. It was time to do a job._

_By the time the sun was coming up, he was deep in the vault, listening to the debrief from the Soldier's latest mission. The only thing making him hold his tongue from demanding to know why he was there for this bullshit was the presence of Secretary Pierce._

_It told him plenty: something had gone wrong with the Soldier._

_"And that's when the asset just started pissing his pants," Smith finished up, looking from Pierce to Brock and back. "Not to ask questions above my paygrade, sir, but what the_ hell _?"_

_Pierce looked thoughtful, steepling his fingers together. "How did you address the situation?"_

_In his chair, Brock shifted slightly. Damn. He'd had a good working relationship with Smith, even if he didn't particularly like the other man. And now here he was, signing his own death warrant._

_After Smith went over the typical punishment he'd administered--liberal application of electricity--he should have just shut the hell up. But no, maybe he_ wanted _to die, and he kept talking._

_"I asked the Soldier why he'd done that and he said that he was supposed to be wearing a diaper."_

_"Malfunction," Brock muttered, shaking his head. "Science hasn't fixed that yet."_

_"A shame," Pierce agreed, looking back to Smith. "Did anyone else hear your conversation, Smith?"_

_"I don't… no, sir?" Smith looked between the two of them, visible sweat breaking out on his brow. "What's this about?"_

_"Rumlow. Clean this up. I'm going for breakfast." Pierce stood, left the room without another word._

_Brock turned to Smith, shaking his head as he pulled out his handgun. "It's not personal, man."_

_The shot was loud in the silent room. He paged for a removal team and went to see the Soldier._

* * *

They didn’t let him sweat it out in the interrogation room for too long, at least. Maybe because he was already sleep-deprived and further torture was too cruel for “heroes” or maybe just because they were confused enough to want immediate answers.

An hour or so after they’d locked him in the room, Romanoff came waltzing in, a file tucked under her arm.

“Long time no see,” Brock said immediately, raising his cuffed hands from the table as much as he could.

“I have… just so many questions.” Her brows were pinched together, a bare twitch on a normal person but he’d worked with her on and off enough to recognize how exaggerated the expression was on her.

“Bet I don’t have all the answers, but try me. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“You’re in no position to negotiate, Rumlow.”

He grinned, easy and cocky. “That really depends on what you want to know, doesn’t it?”

She set the file down on the table, pushing it close enough that he could pick it up even while mostly cuffed in place. Surveillance photos from the big box store. Dammit. “You almost slipped out, you know. We had you at your little cabin getaway, but by the time we got a team there, you were gone. Then of all things, a retail surveillance camera catches you buying a _swingset_?”

“Guess that’s what I get for not shopping local.” He flipped to the next page, shook his head with a snort. “Oh, you guys found the hell-cube? Did anyone touch it?”

Romanoff’s face didn’t change, but he thought he saw some tension in her body language shift. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, she was good. “What does it do?”

“Fucky science magic stuff. If you’d touched it, you’d know. Come on, stop softballing me. I’ve been in the big leagues about as long as you have.”

“You sound like you’re eager to be tortured.” She took the file back, moved it to a smaller table on the other side of the room.

“I’m eager to get my prison sentence and get out of here. Barely slept for the last three days because the kid’s teething.” He was watching her closely, every shift of weight, every twitch of facial expression. He might have been in the big leagues with Hydra, but the Black Widow was in a league all her own. Her raised eyebrows, the look of surprise she turned on him, was probably a calculated move.

Romanoff took a seat across from him, folding her hands in front of her. “Who is he?”

“I’ve been calling him Jayme. You’ve met him before, though, he gave you a nice scar. And him and Cap go way back.”

Her eyes darted to the left and he followed her gaze for a moment, frowning. Just a blank wall, but if she was looking there… “You’ve got him here?”

“How did you turn Barnes into a toddler?”

“He touched the hell-cube. Who’s with him?”

“And how do we turn him back?”

“Who’s _with_ him, Romanoff? He’s two, he shouldn’t be unsupervised unless he’s asleep.”

Her mask slipped, he was almost positive. The surprise on her face was too genuine, disappeared too quickly, for it to be part of the act. “Barton’s looking after him right now.”

He exhaled slowly, sat back a little and closed his eyes. “The hell-cube can fuck with his age. Maybe anyone’s age, I don’t know for sure. We were on a job a few years back, maybe ‘03 or ‘04, retrieve the tech and get back. Easy stuff, except the fucking Soldier touched the cube and next thing I know, I’m playing babysitter to the world’s most unsettling child for a weekend. He started as an infant, but he grew when he was unobserved. Took about thirty-six hours for him to be close to back to normal, from what I remember.”

“And now? According to Tony, he popped up from a baby to two years old right in front of you two.”

Brock shrugged. “Science team fucked with the cube. We used it on him on a few jobs, stuff where having a kid was our best cover. Cleveland Zoo, Judge Lake down in Alabama, a handful more. He’d touch it and he’d be whatever age we needed, usually somewhere between four and ten. Stay that way until the job was done and he touched the cube again, then back to being the regular Winter Soldier. I was acting handler for all of those missions, and…” He shrugged again, the cuffs jangling. “The kid grew on me.”

The room was quiet for a long time, silent enough that if he wasn’t looking right at her, he’d have thought he was alone. Brock shifted in his chair eventually, his eyes on the table. “He’s not growing and it’s nothing I did. Maybe he just… doesn’t want to. Kid’s been through a lot over the years, I read some of the reports that you put online and saw enough of it myself. I figured… he came to me. Showed up at that cabin and said ‘I remember’ and then _poof_ , I’ve got an infant.”

Romanoff watched him, straight white teeth sinking into her lower lip for a moment. “You’re telling me that you… _care_ about him?”

Brock froze, thoughts flashing through his head. Late nights when Jayme couldn’t sleep, walking the baby around the little house. Early mornings, feeding the kid before he’d even had his coffee. The worry that had gripped him when Laura had called and said the baby was running a fever. Playing with him outside, on the little swingset he’d bought.

Older memories, of an older child. Letting the kid crawl into bed with him after a bad dream. Holding his hand to cross the street. Swinging the Soldier up onto his shoulders to give him a better view, even though it was hell on his back.

And the odd moment here or there, the full grown Soldier coming to him. Sitting close to him during downtime, or watching his back during a fight, or looking up at him with those blue, blue eyes full of trust. The Soldier hadn’t trusted anyone for as long as Brock had worked with him, but when they were alone… he’d let his guard down. And Brock would, too.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment, his voice almost inaudible. “I care about him like… like he _is_ my kid.”

Romanoff exhaled a measured breath. “Steve is _not_ going to be happy when he hears about this.” She stood up, leaving the room almost silently.

Brock kept his eyes on the table, fighting down the burning sensation. He _cared_ about the kid, and it was hitting him hard, making his chest tighten up and his throat try to close. What if they took Jayme away from him? Made him be big again, tried to make him be Barnes?

No. He wouldn’t let them. He’d fight against that even if it killed him. The kid had a chance to make his own choices for the first time in decades, and he’d chosen Brock. He wasn’t going to let anyone take that away, heroes or not.

* * *

The squeak of the door was the only warning he got. Brock’s head jerked up from where he’d almost fallen asleep, just in time for Jayme to run to him and climb onto his lap.

“Commander!” He shouted, waving something clenched in his left hand. “Mithter Clint let me draw you a pick-chur!”

Brock glanced at the door, spotted Barton leaning in the frame with his arms crossed. He turned back to the kid, lifting his hands as much as the cuffs would allow. “Did he? Lemme see, kiddo.”

At two the Soldier had a lisp, he remembered, a slurring of his ‘s’ sounds into ‘th’. Apparently there were other words he had trouble with. Jayme placed the paper ceremoniously down on the table, smoothing it out and pointing at the various crayon scribblings on it. “That one ith you an’ that one ith me. We’re goin’ to the zoo to thee the monkeyth.” He pointed to another scribble, a black blob with red over it. “That’th the bad monkey.”

“I see…” So he remembered Cleveland, at least vaguely. “Did you have breakfast?”

Jayme shifted on his lap, looking over his shoulder. “Yeth, thir.”

“Good boy.” He looked up at a noise from the door, made a face. “The fuck are you looking at, Barton?”

“Commander Brock ‘Stay the Hell Out of My Way’ Rumlow acting like he’s earned an unironic Number One Dad mug, that’s what. I don’t know how you did it, but that kid is… well-adjusted.” He pushed off the door, stepped into the room and took a seat across from them. “Not that I’m a child psychologist or whatever, but… you’ve been doing good with him. Wouldn’t have given you even this much of a chance if Laura wasn’t vouching for you.”

Brock frowned. “So getting caught on surveillance at the store was bullshit?”

“That’s how the _Avengers_ caught you. I have my own network and my sister-in-law recognized your name and tipped me off when you moved to town. I’d been sitting on that because she said you weren’t doing anything wrong.” He looked over his shoulder towards the mirror and the camera, sighing. “And now I’m gonna get yelled at for it, because everyone knows.”

“Good job. So what happens next?”

“Not my decision. We’re waiting on Steve to get back state-side. He’s been all over hell and gone looking for Barnes.”

“Mithter Clint?” Jayme spoke up, “can I have another paper?”

“You bet. Lemme go get it from the other room.” Barton stood, disappeared out the door.

Alone (well, except for the damn camera), Brock slipped his arms around Jayme, squeezed him gently on the sides for a moment. “I know I made a promise not to leave you, kiddo, but if Mr. Clint wants you to go with him, you gotta do it, okay?”

In his arms, the kid squirmed, turning a frown on him. “Dunwanna. Wanna thtay with you.”

“Hey… I don’t mean forever.” The lie hurt that time, in a way it hadn’t ever hurt before. “I just mean, like, if it’s lunch time or something. They’re gonna want me to stay here, but they might take you somewhere else.”

“Thtill wanna thtay with you…” Jayme buried his face against Brock’s chest, sighing. “Commander ith better than anyone.”

Fucking cuffs meant he couldn’t even hug the kid properly. Brock sat quiet for a while, listened to the low sound of people conversing outside. He had these moments to hold onto, at least.

“Um… thir?” The very quiet words made him look down, just in time to spot the welling panic in the kid’s eyes. “I gotta go potty.”

Age two, ‘gotta go potty’ meant _right now_. Brock jerked against the cuffs. “Hey! Barton! Romanoff! Get in here and--”

Too late, he could feel warmth against his lap. Jayme sniffled, started to cry out apologies--’thorry’ over and over--as the two came back into the room.

Taking a deep breath, Brock tried to pat the kid's back. “Hey. Stop that. It’s fine, accidents happen. I ain’t mad, you don’t gotta be sorry. Mr. Clint’s gonna take you to get cleaned up, okay? And then…” He couldn’t promise that the kid would come back to him. Who knew why they’d left him there in the first place. “And then you can color me another picture, huh?”

Barton stepped in, took Jayme’s hand and led him away, assuring him quietly that he really wasn’t in trouble. Brock watched them go, before turning to Romanoff. “Don’t suppose I can bargain for some clean clothes?”

The corner of her mouth pulled up, her head cocking slightly. “Depends on what you have to offer.”

* * *

It was a prison cell, but it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d think it was a fancy hotel room. There was a large bed, a sitting area, a decent sized TV… and a door that only had a handle on the outside.

“Real classy bunch,” Brock muttered, kicking off his shoes and heading for the closet. He pulled out some clean clothes, moved to the bathroom to shower off the sticky feeling on his legs. Odds were that there were cameras everywhere, and while the Avengers seemed to accept that he hadn’t harmed their precious _Bucky_ , he doubted they trusted him. For the time being, however, a shower and some sleep were higher priorities.

Normally he wouldn’t sleep well in a new place without a weapon near at hand, but even his paranoia couldn’t overcome the exhaustion of the last several days. Brock was out five minutes after his head hit the pillow.

It was hard to say what woke him up, but he came to feeling surprisingly well-rested. Brock fought down a yawn, cocking his head and listening. Jayme wasn’t fussing, maybe he could get a few more minutes of--

 _“Agent Rumlow, good morning.”_

He was reaching for a gun under his pillow even as his brain caught up to where he was and what was actually going on. Brock sat up, looking around for the source of the voice. “What the hell?”

_“Sorry to startle you, Agent. My name is J.A.R.V.I.S., I’m an artificial intelligence assistant created by Mr. Stark.”_

Still no clear source of the voice. But some pieces clicked into place pretty fast. “My prison guard?”

_“Among other duties, I suppose. I’m to inform you that your young charge is rather impatient to see you.”_

They were still letting the kid come see him? Brock pushed himself out of bed, grabbing a shirt from the closet and pulling it on. “Well, hell, send him in.”

The door slid open barely a second later and Jayme ran to him, wrapped his arms around Brock’s legs and held on tight. Following more sedately was Barton, looking exhausted.

“Hey, big guy,” Brock scooped him up, planted a kiss on the kid’s forehead before holding him close. “Were you good for Clint last night?”

“Uh-huh, I took a bath and he read me a thtory!”

Brock glanced at Barton, raising an eyebrow. “And were you good _all_ night?” The man looked like hell warmed over. Kid had probably been up crying for half the night…

“Well…” Jayme looked down instead of answering.

“We hit a few snags close to bedtime, but J.A.R.V.I.S. said you were out cold and you seemed to need the sleep. It’s good, though, Jay-Jay and I came to an understanding.” Barton grinned, moving to the room’s small kitchen and starting a coffee pot. “He went to bed last night, so he got to have a banana split for breakfast this morning.”

“A banana split,” Brock repeated, somewhere between curious and irritated. Barton better not be spoiling the damn kid, turning him into a brat.

“Uh-huh!” Jayme perked back up, wriggling to get down and leading Brock into the kitchen. “Mr. Clint made me a banana thplit with ‘nana and yogurt and chock-lit chipth!”

“Next you’ll be wanting ice cream for dinner…” He took the coffee cup from Barton, looking over the rim as Jayme’s eyes got wide. “No, you can’t have that. Not even when Clint’s babysitting.”

The kid pouted for a second, before holding up his arms. “Commander, up. Got thecret for you.”

First the kid wanted down, now he wanted up. Brock wasn’t smiling, he just wanted his damn coffee. Definitely. He scooped Jayme up, let little arms wrap around his neck as the kid’s mouth came close to his ear.

“Ethcape route via wetht thtairwell, we are on the fifty-third floor. Captain Rogerth hath not yet returned, now ith our betht chanthe.”

Brock stared as the kid pulled back, gaping just slightly. He’d been acting very… _two_ up until that moment. Apparently the Soldier’s brain was still kicking around in there. “And how do we handle the very capable agent three feet away who probably just heard your escape plan?”

“Huh?” Barton asked.

“I can eliminate the enemy.”

“I bet. But you missed a surveillance device.”

Jayme frowned, his face pinching together, before his eyes widened. “The computer-man. Dithable him with electro-magnetic pulthe.”

_“An ill-advised solution. EMP would disable the doors until I am back online. You also wouldn’t be able to traverse down fifty-two flights of stairs before I resumed function.”_

“It was a good plan, though,” Brock allowed, setting Jayme back down. “You bring any toys or anything?” he asked, cocking his head towards Barton. “I didn’t exactly plan for him to be two.”

Barton was muttering to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. “Can’t believe you were plotting escape right in front of me before I’d even had my third cup of coffee… Uh, hang on, I might be able to pull something together.” He disappeared out the door, left the two of them alone.

It took barely a second from when he sat down with his coffee until Jayme was with him on the couch, climbing up and sitting practically in his lap. He yawned hugely, most of his weight dropping to rest against Brock. “Thleepy…” So maybe he hadn't kicked up too much of a fuss the night before, but he probably hadn't slept well. Or was just as tired as Brock still was and currently too young to combat that with caffeine.

“You can take a nap…” One hand carded slowly through short dark hair, the other holding his coffee cup. “I won’t leave, kiddo.”

Someone might come along and try to take the kid away from him, but he’d deal with that later. Barton at least seemed willing to extend a modicum of trust. And while Romanoff probably didn’t trust him, she _did_ trust Barton, and his word seemed to be enough to keep her at bay. Hell, even Stark wasn’t giving him any trouble, aside from his weird voyeuristic computer.

In fact, the only issue he could see coming up was--

The door slid open and Brock turned, ready to tell Barton nevermind, the kid had fallen asleep. Instead, stood in the doorway taking up the entire space…

“Rogers?”

* * *

_The Soldier was still, silent, a piece of calm in the storm of confusion around the rest of the room._

_Of course, he_ had _to be. It had been a direct order from his Commander to sit still and be quiet._

_Brock watched that passive face as someone on the science team yammered on about neuro-development and the psyche and things that he only pretended not to understand. He didn’t have fancy degrees and an alphabet soup after his name, but he knew a few things clearly:_

_Someone had fucked with the Soldier’s aging outside of protocols._

_Multiple someones were going to die because of it._

_“Doc,” he finally said, turning to the woman at his side and cutting her off. “Do I look like I give a_ single _shit about any of that?”_

 _She had a spine, which was more than he could say for most of the science team. Met his gaze with challenge in hers. “We knew that age confusion was a possible side effect of the regressions. It’s in the documentation that we_ warned _you about messing with the Soldier’s age too often.”_

_“Does it say anywhere in your paperwork who the fuck turned him into a pants pisser? Protocols are not to use any age below four.”_

_The doctor--Martin or Martinez or something like that--chewed her lip, looked away from him, then squared her shoulders. “That information is classified.”_

_“Above_ my _clearance?”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_So Pierce was fucking around with the Soldier. Playing grandpa? Maybe. Come to think of it… Brock pushed the thought off, shook his head a little. “Whatever. Just fix it before I have to waste more bullets on people.”_

_Someone else in the room let out a small, high whine of fear, but it wasn’t the doctor in front of him. Her gaze was back on his, steady and self-assured. Yeah, okay, she seemed capable enough._

_With that waste of time taken care of, Brock went off to get coffee. No way he was going to fake paperwork about Smith’s death without a healthy dose of caffeine._


	5. Chapter 5

_The Soldier sat down beside him._

_Brock kept cleaning his gun, the movements as methodical and second-natured as breathing. He reassembled the slide, looked down the topsights and finally turned to the Soldier beside him. Blue eyes that had been locked on his moving hands darted to his face before shifting away._

_“Yeah?” Brock asked, double-checking his safety and tucking the gun into his holster._

_“I’m missing a piece of equipment, sir.”_

_He frowned, mentally calculating their inventory. It was a simple snipe job, the Soldier had everything he needed. Hell, Brock had double-checked the packing list himself. Smith’s replacement was some asshole named Rollins who thought he was tough shit because he’d been doing hard time when S.H.I.E.L.D.--Hydra, really--got their hands on him. “No you’re not.”_

_“Sir, I…” The Soldier bit his lip, lowered his voice as the noise of the rest of the team briefly rose in the other room. Two part mission, he and the Soldier were going to be sniping a prominent Bolivian politician while the team planted evidence that implied his son had hired the hit. “It’s Mr. Snuggles, sir. No one packed him.”_

_With an effort that deserved a medal, Brock did not roll his eyes. He did heave a sigh and make a mental note to rip into the science team about this again. These lapses couldn’t keep happening. “Mr. Snuggles is back at base.”_

_“But he’s supposed to be with me. Contingency A-573--”_

_“Don’t lecture me about protocols, kid,” he cut the Soldier off, standing up and patting his shoulder. “You’re not to mention this conversation to anyone else.” He thought about it for a moment, looking down at that pinched gaze. Confused, maybe a little frustrated. The Soldier was way overdue for a break. Clear his head, get rid of all the kid jobs that were hanging on. “Something else bothering you?”_

_From the look, he expected something inconsequential. Something that would make him roll his eyes, that would force him to file a tertiary report about this mission. After a few seconds, the Soldier nodded. “Weather reports indicate a possible thunderstorm tomorrow. High winds could interfere with a shot from our currently planned vantage point. We should prepare a secondary shooting location as a contingency.”_

_Well, that was--fine. More than fine, that was_ normal _. That was the sort of informational report he_ expected _to get when the Soldier sat down beside him before a mission. “Okay,” Brock said after a moment, cocking his head towards the other room where the rest of the team was planning. “Let’s take a look at some maps.”_

* * *

“Rogers?”

Brock felt his heart lurch in his chest with something he thought he’d abandoned a long time ago: fear. Steve goddamn Rogers, standing in the doorway and staring at him with murder in his eyes. Nothing self-righteous about it, no good man standing against an army of evil. It might not have been personal back when he was just following orders, but it sure as hell was personal now.

“Where is he?” Steve demanded, his voice low and cold. “Where’s Bucky?”

He moved slow, gently touched one hand to the sleeping toddler’s head on his lap. “Don’t wake him up. He’s had a rough couple of days.”

“Bucky…” Steve’s face softened for a moment as he took a few steps into the room. Then his eyes met Brock’s again, hard as ever. “What did you do to him?”

The sarcasm and snark that he wanted to slam down like a shield stuck in his throat. Brock looked down at the sleeping kid, at the little puddle of drool on his pants, at what had once been the Soldier and was now someone he felt… responsible for. Protective of. He’d felt that way for a long time and the Soldier coming to _him_ seemed to say that he’d been right to feel like that. So instead of snapping back something harsh and starting a fight he knew he’d lose, he only shrugged. “Cared about him, I guess.”

The lack of challenge seemed to deflate the last of the anger. Steve took a seat across from them, his eyes locked on Jayme ( _Bucky_ , Brock thought with some internal disgust. The kid didn’t look like a _Bucky_ ). “Tony filled me in on the basics when he called me. The… hell-cube, you’re calling it? He’s been looking at it, but he says…” His jaw worked for a moment, before he cleared his throat and continued. “As far as he can tell, whatever was powering it is fried. We can’t use it to put Bucky back to normal.”

 _Good_ , Brock thought immediately, startling himself with how fiercely protective that thought was. It wasn’t tinged with the idea of using the kid as a bargaining chip, or keeping the Soldier loyal to him. “He’s been through a lot. Romanoff dumped the data online and if you’ve read even the cliffnotes, you know--”

“That you helped torture him for years, yeah.”

Brock grit his teeth. “My _point_ is that he doesn’t seem to remember all that right now--” if he didn’t count the drawing of the ‘bad monkey’ yesterday “--and maybe that’s for the best. Maybe we _don’t_ try to dump a century worth of trauma into his brain after he made the choice to try to get away from it.”

“You call what he did a choice?”

His eyes shot up, met Steve’s ready for a fight. There was only surprise on the other man’s face, however, genuine shock at the idea that the Soldier would return to a handler he trusted instead of… what? Running away? Searching out dead friends he didn’t even remember? “His orders were to kill you the day Insight went up. Pierce burned everything else out of his brain. I’ve seen it happen before…” His throat clicked for a moment and Brock straightened up. “He’s like a machine, afterwards. Input and output only.”

Steve shifted his weight. “I wasn’t fighting a machine. He was… he kept looking at me like…”

“Yeah, yeah, you broke the code. Good job. Point is, he was set to return to Pierce. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to die that day like a good little soldier. After all, Pierce had to come into his brave new world squeaky clean and a thug squad backing him up wasn’t the look he was going for. I only gleaned secondary information, but his plan was to basically chalk Insight up as a failure on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s part, a horrifying accident that _he_ tried to stop.” Brock scoffed. “Sanctimonious prick.”

“You didn’t have that attitude when you were following his orders,” Steve pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “You know, electrocuting me in an elevator after I took out a dozen of your Hydra buddies.”

“Told you that wasn’t personal.”

“Kinda felt personal.”

Brock laughed, though he had a feeling the moment was a lot less funny from the other side. “Hey, I’m being cooperative and even though he’s between me and you, the kid ain’t a human shield. Be nice.”

The look was back, like he was less than dirt below someone’s boots. “You haven’t earned nice.”

“There’s the Cap that they didn’t put in the newsreels. So yeah, Insight day, the Soldier is supposed to kill you, the launch is supposed to happen, and Pierce is supposed to rise from the ashes of S.H.I.E.L.D. like some sort of phoenix with a savior complex. Except _none_ of that goes down and I burn through every favor I’m owed just trying to get far enough away that no one will find me. I know how the deck was stacked and what sticking around would have meant.” He shrugged. Prison or death, probably both. Die fighting for a cause he didn’t believe in anymore or rot in prison for crimes he’d committed at the behest of a megalomaniac. “I didn’t tell the Soldier to come to me that day. He chose to find me, chose to do this,” he added, gesturing to the kid on his lap.

“Bucky wouldn’t do that.”

“When are you gonna get it, Cap? He’s not Bucky anymore.” He almost missed the pained look that flashed across Rogers’ face at those words. Brock looked down, stroked his hand through the kid’s hair. “You talk to anyone but Stark about this?”

“Not yet.”

“Talk to Barton, he can probably tell you more about how the kid is doing. Or Romanoff, she was interrogating me yesterday, I probably told her all about my worst fears by the number of times I blinked or something.” He looked up, tried to put sincerity on his face. “What happens to me is… whatever, I deserve it. But if you give half as much of a shit about who he is _now_ as you do about who you _remember_ him being, you’ll let the kid decide what he wants to do. Been damn long enough since he was able to.”

Steve looked at him for a minute longer, before standing up, heading out of the room. Brock wasn’t a master at reading body language, but the way his shoulders sagged just before the door closed between them… He had a feeling that Steve had been ready for a fight, for a chance to show the big bad Hydra agent that kidnapped and tortured his friend just who was in charge. Getting an almost-pleasant conversation hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Not that the fight was out of Brock’s own system. If Cap wanted to go a few rounds, he’d try to hold his own. Just not with the kid around.

Whether or not anyone believed him, what he’d said was the truth as he understood it. The Soldier had chosen to come to him, had chosen to be a kid again, and was choosing to stay that way.

* * *

Jayme woke up around lunch time and, at his careful instruction, Brock made peanut butter and honey sandwiches for them both. Far too sweet for him, but the kid demolished his, as well as the glass of milk and the little cup of orange slices. Brock watched him eat with a smile. Despite everything, he found it hard to believe that the toddler in front of him had been on formula and mushy carrot puree a matter of days ago.

Thoroughly sticky with honey and orange juice, a bath came after lunch. Brock looked around the prison suite, hoping he didn’t look too stupid to the cameras. “Hey, uh… J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

_“Yes, Agent Rumlow?”_

“Can you, I dunno, send a message to someone to get him some clean clothes?”

A moment of quiet, before the computer came again. _“Captain Rogers will be down with clean clothes momentarily. He wishes to assist with bathing.”_

Yeah, _that_ wasn’t weird. Brock set Jayme on the closed toilet lid, crouching down to pull his socks off. “You remember Captain Rogers at all, shortstack?”

The kid frowned and shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Well, he remembers you. Kinda. He’s probably gonna call you Bucky and ask you all sorts of questions about how I am around you. Tell him the truth, okay? You won’t get in trouble.”

Jayme made a face as his shirt was pulled off. “But my name ithn’t Bucky.”

“Good luck convincing him of that,” Brock muttered, looking over his shoulder as the main door opened. There was Steve, looking somehow irritated and sheepish at the same time. He put a stack of child-sized clothes onto the arm of the couch, rolling up his sleeves before stepping into the small bathroom.

Brock stood up, started to move back a step and felt a tug on his pantleg. Jayme was staring at him, eyes wide and lower lip trembling. “Don’ leave, Commander. Pleathe?”

“Bu--” Steve started, his voice choked. He cleared his throat, crouched down where Brock had been and held out his hand. “Hi there. I’m Steve, what’s your name?”

He couldn’t quite see the kid’s expression, but he could guess it. Studying the captain, blue eyes more intent than any normal two-year-old had the right to be. Eventually, Jayme stuck out his hand and let it be shaken. “I’m Jayme.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m a friend of Mr. Clint, you know. And…” He glanced at Brock, seemed to sigh internally. “And a friend of Brock’s.”

 _That_ got the kid to perk up. He looked between them, legs swinging above the bathroom floor. “You didn’t tell me he wath your _friend_ , Commander!”

“Didn’t know he was,” Brock muttered, turning on the faucet to maybe cover the words. He filled the tub with a few inches of water, turned back around. Steve had a look like he might cry, eyes focused on the fusion of skin and metal at the kids left shoulder. Seemingly oblivious to the upset, Jayme was swinging his feet and humming something tuneless. “Hey, Rogers, unless you’re just here to babysit me, help out. Get the kid’s pants off.”

Steve started, shooting him a dirty look before helping Jayme to stand up. He tugged the elastic-waisted jeans down, let the kid hold his arm and step out of them. Next came the pull-up, miraculously dry but discarded anyways. Brock dipped his fingers into the water, held them up as Jayme got closer.

“Ready?” He asked, getting a nod and poking one damp finger into the kid’s navel. Jayme giggled, grabbing onto the edge of the tub and letting himself be helped into the water.

The worst of the mess was his hands and face (honey in the metal arm, the scientists would be having a fit if any of them were alive to see it), but a bath seemed like a good idea regardless. It’d been a few days since the kid had been cleaned with anything more thorough than a damp washcloth. Brock wasn’t going to risk putting him through a bath when he was sobbing from teething.

He worked quietly, talking Jayme through each step of the bath as he wiped him down and added soap. When Rogers sat down on the edge of the tub, Brock only glanced up long enough to pass him the shampoo. “Get his hair clean, I’ll go grab a cup to rinse it,” he instructed, standing up and wiping his hands on a towel.

He could hear their voices from the kitchen, low sounds of conversation. This was it, his judgement, his fate in the hands of a two-year-old. He wasn’t going to stress about it. He’d already gotten more than he deserved.

Privacy was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t help his own curiosity. Brock moved to the bathroom door as quietly as he could, leaning against the wall and listening.

“...wanna,” Jayme was saying, his voice almost inaudible under the slight splashing. “Commander’th nice when ‘m little.”

“But if you wanted to, you could be bigger?” Steve asked softly.

“Think tho.”

“And he wouldn’t be nice, if you were bigger?”

It was quiet for a while, long enough that he almost leaned in and looked. Finally, Jayme spoke again. “Maybe… I think… I think he was nice t’me thometimeth. Wathn’t th’pothed to be.”

 _Nice sometimes, wasn’t supposed to be_ , Brock translated mentally. He gripped the plastic cup tight enough that it bent, his eyes locked on the far side of the room.

“You could come live with me and my friends. We’ll be nice no matter how big or small you are.”

More quiet splashing answered that offer. Brock scrubbed a hand against his face and told himself to wait.

“Commander needth thomeone too. Wanna thtay with him.”

“Buck--”

Brock stepped back into the room, holding up the cup and cutting Steve off. He hadn’t spent a lot of time around the kid at age two, but he’d heard more than enough. Pushing him wasn’t going to change anything, it was just going to make him upset. “You ready to rinse off, short stuff?”

“Yeth, thir!” Jayme grinned, tilting his head back obligingly. He caught Steve’s eye just before Brock put a hand across his forehead, face serious again. “It’th not waterboarding.”

“Took damn long enough to make you learn that one.” Brock rinsed his hair off, ruffling the short, dark strands quickly afterwards. “We gotta get you some bath toys, maybe some bubbles. Everything I have for you back at the house is baby stuff and you’re pretty grown up now.”

“Yeah, about the house…” Steve frowned, getting up from the edge of the tub and grabbing a towel as Brock pulled the drain. “It’s not exactly--”

“Save it,” Brock hissed, helping Jayme out of the tub and gently pushing him towards Steve to get toweled off. “Don’t cover his face up when you dry his hair, he doesn’t like it,” he added, ducking back into the living room for the clean clothes. Pants, shirt, a fresh pull-up, even a little set of socks and sneakers.

With the kid dried off and dressed again, Brock realized just how little there was to occupy a toddler in the suite. He’d mentioned something to Barton, but the man had either gotten busy elsewhere or just flaked. Brock scrubbed a hand against his face. _He_ was undoubtedly under house arrest, if not actual arrest, but that was no reason to keep Jayme cooped up. “You two should go to the park or something. Burn off some energy.”

“You’re not comin’ with uth?” Damn, he should have seen that question coming.

Brock glanced at Steve, raising an eyebrow. “I…”

“He can come if he wants to.” Not that Steve looked _too_ pleased at the idea. “There’s a park not too far away from here, I think it has a good playground.”

Jayme’s eyes widened. “Are there thlideth?!”

“We can go find out together.”

He bolted for the door, stopped short and looked up at it. “Mithter Jarvith, let me out pleathe!”

_“Of course, sir, as soon as there is an adult accompanying you.”_

An impatient stare turned back to them.

Brock looked at Steve, raising an eyebrow and pitching his voice down. “So what, I’m supposed to start not wanting to spend time with the kid because you’re here now?”

Steve’s voice was equally low, his smile firmly in place no matter how strained it looked. “He wants you around for some damn reason, so I guess you’re sticking around. But remember who you’re with if you get any ideas about running off.”

That almost made him laugh. They headed for the door, settling in on either side of Jayme with ease, Steve on the right and Brock on the left. 

Getting to the park required crossing more than one street, but that wasn’t much of a problem. As soon as they’d left the building and gone into the crowds of the city, Jayme had been holding both of their hands.

* * *

_Alone on a rooftop with the Soldier, feeling the wind gust around them and make their comms pointless, Brock kept thinking back to things he should have ignored._

_Like the Soldier pissing himself on a job with Smith because he was supposed to be in diapers._

_Like the ‘classified’ person who made the Soldier a child for something so far off the record, it might as well not exist._

_Like the request for Mr. Snuggles._

_None of it sat right with him._

_“Soldier…” Brock started, his words almost drowned out in the rumble of a threatening storm. It wasn’t raining yet, but the day was gray and gusty, and the clouds were getting darker. “Does Pierce… I mean, is he--”_

_“My assignments for Secretary Pierce are classified.”_

_Damn, he figured as much. “Are you ever a kid when you’re not with me?”_

_The Soldier was still for a while, and Brock was sure that was his answer--a complete nonanswer, neither confirmation nor denial. Then, almost imperceptibly, the Soldier nodded._

_He exhaled, shifted his weight and pushed his luck. “Do you remember those times?”_

_Standard protocol was to implement a soft reset of sorts between missions. The Soldier would forget the details but not his training. He wouldn’t forget who he could trust, who he had to listen to. Brock had read about the hard wipes they used to have to do, basically electrocute him half to death. He couldn’t say he was disappointed to have never seen it._

_“I remember what Secretary Pierce permits me to remember.”_

_Before he could run his dumb fucking mouth and get himself killed, the Soldier’s finger was on the trigger. Brock would have missed it if he hadn’t been staring so intently at the other man, would have been taken by surprise when a moment later the shot rang out, somehow perfectly timed with a clap of thunder and flash of lightning._

_Rain started to pour while the Soldier stood up and disassembled his rifle._

_Brock pulled himself out of his own stupor, got up and shouted into the comm for the secondary team to go. He clicked off on Rollins’ incredulous question of if the Soldier had somehow timed his shot with a random lightning strike, following as the Soldier led the way down._

_He wasn’t surprised when a metal hand found his as they walked, wasn’t surprised by the way it gently squeezed every time lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. Brock squeezed back, leaning in close and speaking low. “Forget I asked you those questions.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_The storm was still raging back at base, and he let the Soldier sit practically in his lap until the secondary team came back._

_After that it was business as usual, radio for pick-up and get the hell out of there._

_That was February of 2012, the last time he worked with the Soldier._


End file.
